Attitudes to English varieties and
English as a lingua franca
For use with Chapter 8 of:
Galloway, N. and Rose, H. (2015). Introducing
Global Englishes. Routledge.
© Dr. Heath Rose and Dr. Nicola Galloway
Review of Lecture 7
• English in expanding global contexts:
– Europe – dominant role, irrespective of the multilingual policy
of the EU.
– East Asia and ASEAN – great emphasis put on English education.
• More than a foreign language.
• ELF – rapidly growing field of study.
• Shift in ELF research from the identification of surface-level
features to an exploration of the processes giving rise to
such features, further emphasizing the flexibility and
hybridity inherent in ELF talk.
• Many criticisms suggesting that Seidlhofer’s ‘conceptual
gap’ may still be present.
• Overall, ELF research is showing how being a NNES does
not make them ‘incompetent’, but in fact, when it comes to
ELF communication, being a NNES can actually be a useful
asset.
Overview
The importance of language attitudes and factors
influencing attitudes
Research studies: attitudes towards native and
non-native English
Attitude studies related to the pedagogical context
of ELT
Attitudes towards English as a lingua franca
Introductory activities
Look at the quote from McArthur (1998, p. 3) in the introduction to
Chapter 8 (p. 173), then discuss the questions below.
1. While we may not always be consciously aware of them, ‘language
attitudes permeate our daily lives’ (Garrett, 2010, p. 2). To what
extent is this true? Are you familiar with any negative language
attitudes expressed through the media?
2. The attitudes expressed in the quote from McArthur may make
some speakers feel that their English is inferior.
– How do you think Scottish or Jamaican speakers would react to these
comments?
– Have you heard similar remarks in your own context?
Attitudes towards the use of English
as an official working language
Look at this commercial that jokes about the possible
attitudes of a typical worker in a Japanese company.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Why are attitudes worth researching?
Are there any factors that influence attitudes?
How could you research the attitudes of such employees?
Would your results have any implications for teaching
English?
Part 1
The importance of language attitudes
and factors influencing attitudes
Defining attitudes
• One of the most distinctive
and indispensable concepts
in social psychology.
• No single definition.
• Sarnoff (1970, p. 279)
describes an attitude as
‘a disposition to react
favourably or
unfavourably to a class
of objects’.
• They are also mental
constructs acquired
through a variety of factors,
including experience.
Cognitive
Involve beliefs about the
world: ‘English is useful
for my future career.’
Behavioural
Affective
Determinants of
behaviour: ‘We
have employed five
new NESTs this
year.’
Involves an
emotional
response: ‘I’m very
afraid of speaking
English in public.’
Attitudes toward language in society (1)
• People make inferences about each other based on accents:
– I wonder where she comes from.
– I think … is the appropriate …
– I love/hate …
• Because they can bias social interaction, ‘language attitudes
represent important communicative phenomena worth
understanding’ (Cargile et al., 2006, p. 443).
1. Life opportunities
• A Pakistani immigrant who moved to Seattle: ‘Most folks just
couldn’t understand the way my learned British accent commingled
with my native Pashtun accent. “Oh, okay! You mean blah blah,”
some folks would respond. Others would say, “This guy is not from
here.” It embarrassed me’ (Ismail, 2012). He advocates that
immigrants to the USA try to imitate American English.
Attitudes toward language in society (2)
• Accent reduction classes.
• Today, more cases of discrimination over English-speaking ability or
foreign accents (The Insurance Journal, 2012), e.g. an Indian-born
UK customer adviser working in New Delhi was dismissed for his
Indian accent, which wasn’t ‘English enough’ (O’Mara, 2007, cited
in Garrett, 2010).
2. Political level
• Prestige varieties receive institutional support, e.g. standard
American English.
Accent reduction classes
• Learn how to ‘lose your accent and speak like an
American’: TestDEN Accent Reduction Course
YouTube video
• But even Americans have negative attitudes towards
some American varieties: The Boston Globe – ‘Class
helps locals lose their Boston accent’
Stereotypes
Motivation, use and
experience –
Dörnyei’s (2009) ideal
L2 self and linguistic
self-confidence
(Dörnyei et al., 2006)
Contact and
use
Factors
influencing
attitudes
Proficiency
Person specific –
voice, race.
Rubin’s (1992)
and Amin’s
(1999) studies
Familiarity –
Dörnyei et al.’s
(2006) contact
hypothesis – no
contact
opportunities
Attitude change
• Subject to change – shaped:
– By their own use (Brumfit, 2001).
– As contact opportunities increase.
• Example – RP:
– Changeable (Lectures 2 and 3).
– More popular with 1.5 billion speakers outside England than within the
country (Morrish, 1999, cited in Garrett, 2010, p.14).
– The sacking of Zenab Ahmed, a BBC news presenter, who wrote the following
to the Daily Telegraph (30 October 2003, cited in Garrett, 2010, p. 14): ‘The
BBC has sacked me for sounding too posh. At the moment, the World Service
is on a mission to sound classless – hence the proliferation of Scottish, Welsh,
Irish and Australasian voices.’
– BBC News website (8 October, 1999) – Boris Johnson claimed he was sacked as
a presenter on BBC Radio 4 because his accent was ‘too posh’.
– ‘Cheryl Cole’s accent is not worth the risk for X Factor, Fox decides’ – Guardian
headline, 26 May, 2011).
– Beal (2010, p. 1) – public interest in regional dialects, discussing the BBC
Voices project.
• Do you know of any similar reports in your own context?
Research methods used to
investigate attitudes
• Language attitude studies date back to the 1930s
(Pear, 1931).
1. Societal treatment.
2. Direct measures.
3. Indirect measures.
• What methods do you think these approaches use?
1. Societal treatment
• Gain insights into the relative status of language varieties.
• Analyses the ‘treatment’ given to them and to their speakers.
• Tools:
–
–
–
–
–
Content analysis.
Observation.
Ethnography.
Government policies, job advertisements, and media output.
Bookshop analysis (e.g. Lecture 4)?
• Linguistic landscape studies – ‘The language of public road signs,
advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs,
and public signs on government buildings combines to form the linguistic
landscape of a given territory, region, or urban agglomeration’ (Landry and
Bourhis, 1997, p. 25).
– Highlights attitudes as well as power relations between linguistics groups.
– Books and websites:
– Sign Language: Travels in Unfortunate English from the Readers of
The Telegraph (Aurum Press, 2011).
– The Lonely Planet’s Signspotting: Funny signs from around the world.
2. Direct measures
• Direct questions:
–
–
–
–
Questionnaires.
Interviews.
Focus groups.
Diaries.
• Perceptual dialectology:
– A branch of folk linguistics, designed to fill in the missing parts of
the ‘language-attitude puzzle’ (Kuiper, 2005, p. 29) – rating
languages without exposure to them.
– Examines ‘people’s (more conscious) beliefs about language use’
(Jenkins, 2007, p. 75).
– Drawing speech zones on a blank (or minimally detailed) map,
ranking accents (correct/incorrect; pleasant/unpleasant), and
interviewing respondents about the tasks.
– Useful in explaining attitudes – particularly useful in the context
of GE, where it is necessary to investigate attitudes towards
often unfamiliar varieties of English.
3. Indirect measures
• Matched guise technique (MGT)
– Evaluate audio-taped speakers
– Told that they are listening to a number of different speakers, although
it is one speaker in different ‘guises’
– Attitude-rating scale – friendliness, sociability, intelligence, etc.
– Lambert et al. (1960).
– Criticisms:
–
–
–
–
Deceptive.
Ability to keep vocal characteristics constant.
Inability to measure other important variables.
‘Acontextual.’
• Verbal guise technique (VGT)
– Speech samples provided by authentic speakers of each variety.
– Participants still think they are rating people rather than language.
– However, when this method is not contextualised or supported with
other more qualitative methods, it is difficult to see how rating
language varieties based on adjectives such as ‘intelligent’ can really
tell us what people think.
Part 2
Research studies: attitudes towards
native and non-native English
Attitudes of NESs towards NE
Study
Country
N size
Method
Attitudes
towards:
Results
Huygens
and
Vaughan
(1983)
New
Zealand
120
Pakeha
NZ uni.
students
VGT
English,
Dutch,
Maori, and
Pakeha
speakers (3
status
groups)
•
Standard
British and
standard
American
English
•
New
Zealand,
Australian,
American,
and ‘RPtype’ English
•
•
Stewart,
Ryan and
Giles
(1985)
America
Bayard et
al. (2001)
New
Zealand,
Australia,
and
America
60 uni.
students
400
students
VGT
VGT
•
•
•
•
•
•
Maori speakers were the least successfully
identified by ethnic group.
English, Dutch, and then Maori were seen as
prestigious.
English and Pakeha speakers seen as equally
prestigious – related to occupational class.
Speech styles approximating RP were rated
the highest.
British speakers rated more highly than
American English on status, but the opposite
for solidarity.
RP rated higher than the students’ own
accent for social status, but less intelligible.
American English was most highly evaluated.
Australian students ranked own accents in
third or fourth place on most traits.
New Zealand students ranked own accent
below American, Australian, and RP.
New Zealanders (and Australians) did not give
their own accents top ratings in solidarity.
Conclusions
• High vitality of both standard American and RP – within and
outside of the IC.
• Lecture 2 and 3 hinted at moves away from standard language
ideology in the IC, yet attitude studies show that these two
‘varieties’ are still held in high regard.
• Huygens and Vaughan’s (1983) and Bayard’s (2001) studies
indicate that international ‘standard’ Englishes are regarded
more highly than their own locally spoken Englishes?
• Bayard’s (2001) study suggests a movement away from
British English toward American English.
• Attitudes are subject to change, even within the IC.
Attitudes of NNESs towards NE
Attitudes of non-native English speakers to
native English
Topic
Study
Country
Research design method
Ladegaard and Sachdev (2006) Denmark
Verbal guise study with 96 EFL
learners
Kirkpatrick and Xu (2002)
China
Questionnaire with 171 students
McKenzie (2008a and 2008b)
Japanese learners
in Scotland
Verbal guise study and perceptual
dialectology
Cargile et al. (2006)
Japan
Verbal guise study with 113
university students
Adolphs (2005)
UK
Interviews with 24 international
students at a British university
Attitudes of NNESs towards NE
(IC and acknowledgment of variation)
Study
Country
N Size
Method
Results
McKenzie
(2008a and
2008b)
Scotland
Japanese
uni. students
VGT; PD
•
More positive towards Scottish Standard English speech
than Glasgow Vernacular speech.
•
African-American Vernacular English rated less
positively in terms of status, but more favourably in
terms of social attractiveness than Mid-West US English.
Cargile et
al. (2006)
Japanese
students
• Didn’t group IC English as one single variety – often ignored.
• Highlight the tendency to judge language varieties hierarchically.
• But VGT and MGT tell us little about attitudes, or what factors serve to explain these
attitudes.
• Adolph’s (2005) longitudinal study:
– 24 pre-sessional international (one year study at UK-based uni.); interviews at twomonthly intervals.
– Results: simplistic notion of the NES, and familiarity led to more negative attitudes;
became increasingly aware of the need to understand English in international
communication.
– Does the fact that when students encountered Englishes that didn’t fit their
preconceived notion of ‘standard’ English have implications for GE?
Attitudes of NNESs towards NE and NNE
Attitudes of non-native English speakers to
non-native and native Englishes
Topic
Study
Chiba et al.
(1995)
Country
Japan
Research design
method
Verbal guise with
169 university
students
Results
•
•
•
Starks and
New Zealand Questionnaire with
Paltridge (1994)
172 Japanese
university students
•
•
Matsuura
et al. (2004)
Japan
Closed questionnaire
with 50 university
teachers and 660
university students
More positive towards NESs –
familiarity.
Familiarity didn’t lead to positive
attitudes towards Japanese.
Suggested implications for ELT, but
not investigated.
American and British English
rated more favourably than NZ
English.
2nd highest preference (after
American English) was for learning
English with a Japanese accent.
Conclusions
•
•
•
•
Preference for NE.
Rejection of NNE (including own ‘variety’).
Implications for GE?
Related to the use of the NES model in ELT and the high
vitality of NE?
Part 3
Attitude studies related to the
pedagogical context of ELT
ELT related studies
• Why is it important to investigate learners’ attitudes?
• Awareness of learners’ beliefs:
– Make both learners and teachers aware of their needs –
increased autonomy and self-awareness.
– Help them evaluate their own stereotypes.
– More effective lesson planning and satisfaction.
– Language planning and the elaboration of pedagogical
objectives.
ELT-related studies
Research studies on attitudes towards English in relation to ELT
Study
Country
Research design method
Prodromou (1992)
Greece
Questionnaire with 300 students
Dalton-Puffer et al.
(1997)
Austria
Modified match guise with 132 students
Rubin and Smith (1990) USA
Matched guise study
Rubin (1992)
USA
Verbal guise study with 62 university students
Kelch and SantanaWilliamson (2002)
USA
Verbal guise study with 56 ESL students (mostly
Spanish speakers)
Butler (2007)
Korea
Matched guise study with 312 grade 6 students
Mckenzie (2008a,
2008b)
Japan
Verbal guise study with 558 university students
He and Li (2009)
China
Questionnaire, matched guise, and interview
with 795 students and 189 teachers
Greece
• Prodromou’s (1992) survey-based study investigated 300 English students’
attitudes on the content of language teaching, including attitudes towards
bilingual, bicultural teachers, NES models, and the cultural content of
lessons.
• Just over half thought that NESTs should know the learners’ mother tongue
and the local culture.
• The popularity of British English compared to American English is related to
the ‘“bad-press” the Americans have had in post-war Greece (the presence
of US bases on Greek soil, a history of interference in internal affairs, etc.)
as well as the widespread feeling amongst Greeks that British English is a
“purer”, more “refined” form of English’ (pp. 44–45).
• Only 62% of students overall said they would like to speak English like a
native speaker, and a strong interest in British life and institutions (60%)
was found.
• The author also discusses the predominance of British-based Cambridge
examinations in Greece, which is a valuable discussion. However, this
rather descriptive study only utilized questionnaires, and the attitudes of
these Greek students are not explored in any depth.
Austria
• Dalton-Puffer et al. (1997) conducted an Austrian-based modified
MGT study involving 132 students (two thirds planned to become
English teachers) of EFL, in a provided context (listeners thought the
purpose of the study was to choose voices for an upcoming audiobook).
• The Austrian accent received the most negative response and the
majority favoured RP as a model of pronunciation and familiarity
was listed as a reason.
• In this study, personal experience was found to be much more
important in choosing General American English over RP.
• Almost half of the respondents had not experienced English in a NES
country and, of those who chose RP as a model, even more students
(55%), had not spent more than one month in a NES country.
However, of those who preferred an American model, only 34 per
cent had not been on an extended stay abroad.
America
• In Rubin and Smith’s (1990) matched guise study, two native
speakers of Cantonese recorded highly accented and
moderately accented versions of simulated classroom
lectures.
• Similarly, McKay’s (1995) study (cited in Bamgbose, 1998) of
15 international students taking ESL courses at the University
of Illinois involved listening to recordings of two groups of
teaching assistants.
• Kelch and Santana-Williamson’s study (2002) asked 56 ESL
students to listen to and rate three NESs and three NNESs of
different varieties who read the same script.
Korea and Japan
• Butler’s matched guise (2007) study on the effects of Korean
elementary teachers’ oral proficiencies and pronunciation on 312
grade 6 students’ listening comprehension examined students’
attitudes towards teachers with American-accented English and
Korean-accented English.
• The results failed to find any difference in comprehension, although
students who thought the American English guise had better
pronunciation were more confident in using English, focused more
on fluency than on accuracy, and used less Korean in the English
class.
• A further verbal guise study that related the findings to the
pedagogical context of ELT is McKenzie’s (2008a and 2008b) study
of 558 Japanese university students towards six varieties of English.
Once more, the results suggest a favourable attitude towards
standard and non-standard varieties of UK and US English in terms
of status.
Conclusions (1)
• Positive attitudes towards NE are also present in the ELT context.
• English learners have a strong attachment to NES norms.
• Many researchers advocate curriculum and educational change in order to
shift attitudes of students in the EC – but can their results support calls for
change?
– ‘It seems unreasonable to impose a single, or, indeed, a restricted range of
pedagogical models for English language classrooms’ (McKenzie, 2008a, p. 79).
• MGT and VGT studies reveal just a little about attitudes or in-depth
information about students’ orientations.
• Many factors influence these attitudes:
–
–
–
–
–
Predominance of the NES episteme in ELT.
Familiarity.
Stereotypes.
Proficiency.
Gender.
Conclusions (2)
• Students continue to favour NESs, but more research is required.
• But:
– Only a few studies.
– Are they students making decisions based on the availability of sound
information (e.g. dominance of NE)?
• Studies conducted in relation to the pedagogical context of ELT
highlight a strong attachment to NES norms. However, there is also
a suggestion that many factors influence these attitudes, including
the predominance of the NES episteme in ELT.
• Learners need more choice and ‘the choice needs to be made in full
knowledge of the sociolinguistic facts and without pressure from
the dominant NS community’ (Jenkins, 2006, p. 155).
Part 4
Attitudes towards English as a
lingua franca
Research studies related to English
as a lingua franca
Topic
Study
Jenkins (2007)
Country
Mixed (12
countries)
Research design Method
Questionnaire and perceptual
dialectology with 326 English teachers
(300 NNES)
Teachers’ attitudes towards ELF
Details of the findings of each of these studies are discussed at length in the book
Sifakis and Sougari (2005)
Greece
Questionnaire with 421 teachers
Decke-Cornhill (2003)
Germany
Focus groups with teachers in two types
of school
Murray (2003)
Switzerland
Questionnaires with 253 Swiss teachers
from private and state schools
Sasaki (2004, cited in
Yoshikawa, 2005)
Japan
Questionnaire with 97 Japanese high
school English teachers
Seidlhofer and Widdowson
(2003)
Austria
Opinion essays with 48 3rd and 4th year
university students taking a teacher
education option
Jenkins (2007)
Mixed
Interviews with 17 NNESTs
Research studies related to English
as a lingua franca
Details of the findings of each of these studies are discussed at length in the book
Students’ attitudes towards the
role of Global Englishes
Topic
Study
Timmis (2002)
Country
Mixed
Research design Method
Questionnaires (180 teachers from 45 countries
and 400 students in 14 countries)
Kuo (2006)
Grau (2005)
UK
Germany
Interviews with 3 university students
Questionnaire and post-discussion with 231 1st
year university students
Matsuda (2003)
Japan
Questionnaires with 33 high school students,
interviews with 4 teachers and 10 student
observations
Galloway (2011)
Japan
Questionnaires (116 students), interviews (20
students) and focus groups (24 students)
Galloway (2013)
Japan
Questionnaires (52 students) and interviews
(4 students)
Studies in Global Englishes
• There have been only a few studies conducted in the field that
have investigated students’ attitudes towards Global Englishes.
• The main conclusions to be drawn are that, while students
continue to favour NESs, more research is required to support
proposals for Global Englishes.
• However, Galloway’s (2011) study presented a thorough
examination of attitude formation, particularly the influence of
NES norms in ELT. It also investigated the possible influence of
new approaches to ELT on attitudes towards English.
• With limited experience with and exposure to NNES, as well as
a lack of awareness of the role of English today and the
changing representations of speakers of the language,
students are not making decisions based on the availability of
sound information.
Summary of Lecture 8 (1)
• Attitudes are complex.
• Attitudes are influenced by many factors: culture, familiarity,
vitality and prestige, pedagogical context, race, proficiency,
and motivation.
• Language attitudes are subject to change.
• There is a need for both short- and long-term studies.
• Research into the attitudes of learners can provide teachers
with an awareness of their learners’ beliefs, help inform
curriculum development, increase self-awareness among the
learners, foster autonomous learning, and encourage them to
think critically about the language.
Summary of Lecture 8 (2)
• Studies reveal that NE is highly valued and many in the
education context prefer to follow a NES model.
• However, many have limitations regarding methodology and
very few investigate the possible reasons for attitudes.
• Can they be used to justify the dominance of the NE model?
• Do learners need more choice?
• More studies are needed.
• Lecture 6 looked at influence of GE instruction on attitudes
and attitudes towards English teachers.
Key terms
Stereotypes
High vitality
Prestige
Familiarity
Contact hypothesis
Intelligibility/unintelligibility
Integrative motivation
Ideal L2 self
Linguistic self-confidence
The language–culture discrepancy
Hypothesis
Matched guise
Verbal guise
Perceptual dialectology
Questionnaires
Interviews
Motivation
NE episteme
Global Englishes instruction
Societal treatment approach
Direct approach
Indirect approach
Further reading
Language and attitudes:
• Garrett, P. (2010). Attitudes to Language: Key Topics in
Sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Giles, H. and Billings, A. C. (2004). ‘Assessing language attitudes:
Speaker evaluation studies.’ In A. Davies and C. Elder (eds),
The Handbook of Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Attitudes towards ELF:
• Jenkins, J. (2007). English as a Lingua Franca: Attitude and Identity.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.